Page 12 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

My heart does that thing that only Azrael brings out in me. It’s like panic and fear mixed with hope and joy, all of it wrapped up in grief and yes and that recognition I still want to deny. I don’t like it at all. Too many complicated emotions when I prefer them to be

straightforward. I can be sad or mad or happy or nervous, but I don’t want to be all of them .

At the same time.

Though the way Azrael looks at me, it’s hard not to think that complication might not be so bad...

I hear Emerson clear her throat. She’s looking at me meaningfully, like we’re going to have a talk later.

But not yet.

“I think we need to put a bubble around the room,” I tell the coven, as if I’ve been thinking of nothing else. Certainly not

how complicated I might need to get with Azrael, purely for research purposes. To see how much I dislike it... or don’t.

“Not just the normal protections around Wilde House, but a specific, obscuring bubble around this room to make sure no one

can catch the slightest hint of what we’re doing. Or why.”

Everyone offers their agreement. Frost, who agreed with me on this earlier, nods. “The familiars will hold it for us.”

As if they’ve been listening, they begin to appear. Not necessarily in this room, but around Wilde House. We can feel them out there—layers of protection against anything that might wish us ill,

anyone that might betray us.

We arrange ourselves in our normal circle, then all kind of stop... because we need to make room for a new member. A very

large member.

Which reminds me of the most amazing thing we learned today.

“Let’s arrange ourselves like the table. The book.” I flick a wrist toward the hearth and act like I’m Emerson, projecting

a witch PowerPoint of sorts above the fire. The image is the same as the one I saw in the book in Frost’s library and the

diagram I drew Emerson in the kitchen, with all the Old High German labels translated into English.

“The spell said a circle,” Frost points out.

The way he did all afternoon.

I nod because, in the normal way of things, he’s right. A circle is balance. It’s power. It’s protection . We’ve done so much in a circle this past year because it is the most centered way to use our magic.

But this is what I told him, so this is what I tell everyone else now. “I think this is an adjustment we have to make. We’re a true coven now. We need to behave as a true coven.”

I could be wrong. Frost didn’t offer me his opinion on that. All he said was that we should put it to a coven-wide vote. I

suspect because he’s oversensitive to any faint hint that he might be acting outside of the lines. And good for him on that.

Still, I don’t think I’m wrong on this. And if there’s anything that being Emerson’s best friend since we were small has taught

me, it’s that doubting yourself never gets you where you need to go. Belief has a power all its own.

“It makes sense,” Emerson agrees with a nod, and looks around to make sure everyone’s on board. When they all indicate that

they are, she turns back. “Do we need a table?”

“No, I think the floor is fine,” I say, moving more into the center of the room. “Think of the rug like a table. Emerson,

you’re at the head.”

She takes a seat on the hardwood floor at the edge of the rug.

A rug that I only now realize, all these years after staring at it and not seeing its pattern, depicts a nachtkrapp , an old German fairy-tale creature that looks like a raven, but without eyes and with holes in its wings. I glance at Azrael.

Could this be...?

He shrugs negligently, neither affirming nor denying that this rug could be yet another cursed magical creature.

I suppose it doesn’t matter. Not until we know how to free them all.

Everyone else has taken their place, even Azrael. I’m still standing, though, and now everyone is looking at me, so I hurry

to my spot.

Emerson starts off by taking Jacob’s and Rebekah’s hands on either side of her, starting the chain. It moves on, Jacob to

Zander. Rebekah to Ellowyn. Zander to Frost. Ellowyn to me. Me to Azrael. Azrael to—

Frost’s hand is outstretched, but Azrael is only scowling at it.

I squeeze his hand and try to speak to him in his head. I’ve never tried before. I’ve always talked out loud to him as a newel post. But if he can be in my head, if he can be real, I can be in his.

Please.

His gaze shoots to mine, onyx with very little gold, but too much heat.

With great reluctance, he puts his hand in Frost’s.

And I swear the heat between our hands grows then, his and mine. One more connection.

Complication , I correct myself.

We whisper the words of protection, of shrouding the room from the Joywood and any who would wish us harm. A spell we can

all do on our own, but when it matters most, we do it together to make the protection that much more airtight.

When the room is protected and fully shrouded from anything without, our familiars hold the bubble of safety around us, obscuring

our magic from any passerby.

And then we begin the ancient spell. Together. As one.

“Moon above, earth below, grant us your strength and your power in this uncertain hour.”

Magic swirls around us, in ways I can see and feel and even taste.

“Hide the dragon’s intensity, shroud his immensity, give all the propensity to see only a man. A threat to none. Overlooked

by all.”

I see bands of black and gray swirling around Azrael, while his eyes glow gold. I can see the dragon he really is, like a projection

behind him.

We’ve done powerful, amazing things in the past year, but this feels different. Not bigger, not more important. Saving the

confluence, saving ourselves, surviving the Undine—these were all bigger things, but there’s something settled about this magic.

Ancient.

Powerful.

A true coven , Azrael whispers inside me.

With careful words, we close the spell.

“With our words as one, our magic hold, to all who see.”

And when the last word shimmers in the space between us, then disappears, we all sit in a reverent kind of quiet. The spell

took a lot of energy, and we’re tired, but I suspect we’re all thinking the same thing.

It will be impossible to know if it really worked until we test it around the Joywood. Not a fun thought.

But something in me feels as ancient and powerful as the spell. Something in me knows it worked, the same way I know Azrael.

Something in me insists that a true coven is a force the Joywood never wanted to reckon with.

After all, if they don’t have a magical creature—if they killed or cursed their own, if Happy is truly dead—that means they’re

not acting as a true coven in this period between us winning the ascension trials and us fully ascending on the solstice.

Emerson is the first to speak. “Us shop owners have a big day tomorrow. We should get some rest.”

She gets to her feet and Jacob goes to her, slinging an arm across her shoulders. She smiles up at him, and that’s how it

goes. Rebekah and Frost swirl off, looking at each other in a way that reminds me that they are both far freer spirits than

I’ve ever been. Ellowyn grumbles her way to the bathroom, muttering about her giant belly , but Zander makes her laugh when she comes back, then takes her hand and magicks them away.

The couples pair off, back to their lives together. Something that has become regular and a little depressing... except

this time, I’m not left alone.

Because Azrael stays here with me, as if he’s mine.

We should rest, I tell myself piously, even though neither one of us is a shop owner. I should tell him what room to sleep

in so I can have mine back, so I can give my crystals a good cleanse and figure out what’s going on there.

Instead, he turns that dragon smile on me, and I feel it like his mouth all over my heated skin. “It’s very dark, Georgina. No moon to be seen. How about a ride?”

And I should say no. I should scold him. I’m not convinced the spell shrouding his magic works if he’s off flying around in

his dragon form, and I certainly shouldn’t encourage that kind of behavior, especially when there’s a gossipy ancient raven wandering about keeping tabs on such things.

But I don’t.